Like wine to her
by Never-strike-twice
Summary: Ginny mooning about Harry. Oneshot. Set at the beginning of Ginny's third year. Despite title, no reference to drinking. Better than it sounds, I'm just no good at writing summaries. Please read and review.


**This is set when Ginny is in her third year and Harry is in his fourth, but before he becomes one of the school champions. Enjoy, and please review. **

He was like wine to her. Wonderful, perfect as she took him in. Later, she always felt the after -effects of her obsession. But, like an alcoholic, she kept coming back for more.

Ginny spent most of her mealtimes just staring at him. Of course, she sat with her friends in the Great Hall, and they talked to her. She heard what they said, and replied, giving short responses and using as little of her brain on them as possible. It wasn't that she didn't like her friends. It was just that when Harry was around, she had better things to concentrate on than chatting. It was a good thing he wasn't in her year. Her grades would have dropped considerably if he had been.

She didn't do it for a reason. Just because she couldn't help herself. And because to her, he was perfect.

Today he looked tired. More than tired, exhausted. From where she was sitting, across and just a few seats along from him, Ginny could see the droop of his eyelids; how his head dropped dangerously near to his plate as Ron talked to him (she couldn't blame him for that). She could also see the shadows under his bright green eyes. Those beautiful eyes somehow brought out the green in the dark smudges, making them look like bruises against his pale skin. How Ginny wished that once, just once, Harry would turn to look at her, so that she could lose herself in those eyes.

And almost at once, they did. As if longing had made him look up, Harry glanced at her, just a fleeting look, but intense, as his eyes always were. Immediately, Ginny turned to stare at the girl who was talking to her. She felt his gaze leave her face, and she looked around again.

She felt like an idiot. She had been longing for him to look at her, and as soon as he did, she looked away. A silly, childish game. But somehow it felt important that he didn't see her looking at him. She was sure that he would read her feelings in her eyes. And she couldn't bear that. She had little enough already. She didn't want that replaced by pity.

He treated her like a little girl, like she was five years instead of a year younger than him. He made jokes, assuming she wouldn't understand, left her out of conversations. Ginny had expected it. Her brother was his best friend, what else should she expect? Growing up with six older brothers had led her to assume that she would be treated like the baby. She knew it was coming, but it still hurt. Every time.

She saw Harry glance up, twisting to see the Ravenclaw table. She didn't bother o crane her neck to see who he was looking at. She already knew. How she wished that she could be two years older, a pretty, intelligent quidditch player. More than that, she wished that it could be her that Harry was twisting to see, his black hair flopping over his eyes. That hair would have made Ginny smile, if Harry had been staring at anyone else. Preferably a boy. Or her.

Ginny felt her own eyelids drooping, and remembered how she had stayed awake late into the night, crying over that boy. She had cursed Cho Chang for existing, for not even noticing the boy Ginny cared about so much. For hurting Harry. For hurting her. And she had prayed to a God that she had never believed in, that nobody she knew believed in, she had prayed to the gods of every religion known to man, to anything, anybody who might be able to make those sea-green eyes look her way and stay.

She had eventually cried herself to sleep, waking freezing cold on the floor by the window at four in the morning. She had crawled into her bed and curled into a ball, shutting herself away from the world, swearing that today she wouldn't look; she would talk to her friends and not even glance at him.

As usual, she had scanned the Great Hall with her eyes as soon as she came in, and had sat with the group of friends closest to him, taking care to sit opposite him to get the best view. Because as much as it hurt her, she could not tear her eyes away from him face.

She drank him in like wine. Because that's what he was to her.

**Not sure about this. Please review.**


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